Inspired by true events, 'The Quiet Ones' tells the story of an unorthodox professor (Harris) who uses controversial methods and leads his best students off the grid to take part in a dangerous experiment: to create a poltergeist.

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The Quiet Ones

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By now we are sure you have seen all the promotion for the new film The Quiet Ones and you may be yearning to go see it. One of the more polarizing things about the film is it’s PG-13 rating. While this may persuade hardcore horror fans to go the other way we will say that The Quiet Ones has a surprising number of scares and was quite entertaining to see the whole process.

The Quiet Ones is set in the 70’s and similar to The Conjuring this is an period piece with no correlation to todays technology. That being said we enjoyed the found footage aspect of the film as it shows how instrustic the director John Pogue was in knowing that since cameras have been around since then of course there would be found footage. Also the fact that this is based off an actual event called The Philip Experiment allows you to believe in more of the camera’s footage. While not everything is based off the true concept of the experiment it does allow for a solid storyline under the jumps and scares of The Quiet Ones.

The film stars Jared Harris as a professor at Oxford who believes he has a way to extract negative energy out of his subjects. He feels as if they are not haunted or possessed. His subject at this time is a young woman named Jane Harper(Olivia Cooke) who he feels is the key to this all. He repeatedly states in the film “Cure Jane and we cure the world!” That’s a deep statement as it shows that The Quiet Ones is not just a film about the supernatural it’s a film that showed the lengths some would go through to understand mental illness.

All the talent in the The Quiet Ones performs quite admirably and no more than it’s star Olivia Cooke. For a woman who seems suited to play creepy roles she excels in bringing the character of Jane Harper to life. She creates a sympathy for her role that will draw you into her character right along with those involved in the experiment. For an actress who has not even reached 21 she will be known to the horror community for some time as she is already a favorite of many on the popular television show Bates Motel.

The downside of a film like The Quiet Ones is for many the back and forth between the Professor and the colleagues can become tiresome. To say The Quiet Ones is an atmospheric tale is just being lazy. There is so much more here as its direction and style fit more in the light of a documentary than a normal narrative. To give you an idea of what we mean think of the difference between The Amityville Horror and A Haunting in Connecticut. The film does the task of explaining to you what you should be afraid of instead of just showing you. For many this will hurt their opinion of the film as many parts seem unecssary. While we weren’t too pleased with how the ending developed this was still a solid film for those in love with classic horror scaring methods. Unlike previous titles in the now rebooted Hammer Films franchise The Quiet Ones does not just bring and eerie ghost tell to life. It’s so much more than that. Really it’s an educational film to show the archaic ways we as humans dealt with the unknown.

The Quiet Ones is a haunting film that provides classic horror noir that is truly appreciated in the sometimes stale and over gory horror genre. While it won’t be for all we would suggest that if you have been a fan of any of the supernatural mainstream releases as of late that you give this one a chance.

The Quiet Ones is directed by John Pouge and stars Jared Harris, Olivia Cooke , Sam Claflin, and Erin Richards. It is being distributed courtesy of Lionsgate.

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Travis has been covering the horror industry for the past 10 years. Through this time he has made connections with actors, publicists, producers, writers and directors in the horror industry. He brings an impressive resume and black book of horror knowledge and clients at his disposal.

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